Dear Niece's Birthday Party

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Our Dear Niece turned 3!
You know the drill: here's our menu for the party; photos below. (June 1, 2008)

Savory
Watermelon Feta Salad
with Greek olive oil, olives

Baby Spinach Salad
red and yellow bell peppers, tofu, carrots, green onions, miso-sesame dressing

Tomato Onion Tart
roast/confit tomatoes, caramelized onions, basil, on puff pastry

Roast Asparagus
Cold Spicy Cucumber Salad
Korean Sprouts Salad

White Rice

JS' Spaghetti and Meatballs

Chicken Wings Africana

Grilled Baby Back Ribs à la Chinoise

Mussels "Congolaise"
tomatoes, smoked chili, lime, cilantro

Steelhead Trout with Vietnamese Caramel Sauce

Sweet
Teddy Bear Birthday Gelato Cake
Grilled Pineapple with Nutella Sauce

Let's start the parade!


Watermelon Feta Salad
Nothing fancy. We've had a plain watermelon & feta salad Before. This time we decided to make it even more "Mediterranean" by adding olives. ;)


Baby Spinach Salad
red and yellow bell peppers, tofu, carrots, green onions, miso-sesame dressing

This was surprisingly good. This was the first time I made the miso-sesame dressing, and I must say, it was very good. It gets its own post!


Tomato Onion Tart
We still had puff pastry in the freezer, so I thought I'd do an onion tart again.

So that's grainy dijon, caramelized onions, basil, Parmiggiano-Reggiano and a new addition, some roasted tomatoes. Here are those campari tomatoes going into the oven with olive oil, garlic and some of their stems for that extra tomato aroma.


So pretty.


Roast Asparagus
Done simply with olive oil, salt and pepper.


Spicy Cold Cucumber Salad
So refreshing yet with deadly heat. Our Asian-style salad was dressed with soy sauce, sugar, rice vinegar and sesame oil. Oh, and chile peppers (of course) and green onions too. Details.


Korean Sprouts
I very much dislike regular ol' bean sprouts, but I love these bigger-headed Korean sprouts! It's the same Asian dressing as the cold cucumber salad, but without the heat and with cilantro instead of green onions. Details.


JS' Spaghetti and Meatballs
Of course, what children's party would be complete without spaghetti and meatballs? Besides, the celebrant's mother (that would be CSC) insisted on it. During the planning sessions, when asked about her opinion of the menu, CSC also kept insisting that she really did not care: she predicted she would forsake all others for the spaghetti.


Mussels "Congolaise"
We don't actually have any idea on what "Congolaise" flavors are. We got this idea from a dinner at Chambar: nobody at our table ordered the mussels congolaise, but it smelled heavenly. According to their menu, the mussels were cooked with tomato coconut cream, smoked chili & lime and fresh cilantro. JS took those flavors and made our own version.


Chicken Wings Africana
This was quite a discovery! JS found a recipe through epicurious. We'll talk more about this soon. Read all about them wings here.


Grilled Baby Back Ribs à la Chinoise
We justify "à la Chinoise" with the use of a hoisin-based glaze (with hoisin, honey, soy sauce and black pepper).


Steelhead Trout with Vietnamese Caramel Sauce
This was quite popular with our crowd! I first learned about Vietnamese caramel sauce in Bittmans' How To Cook Everythingor Best Recipes in the World (I can't remember which; in any case, both are highly recommended!). This is deserving of an entire post. (Coming soon. Details here!)

For dessert, we didn't have humongo piles of different items like at Mama's Birthday Party, just two simple things.


Grilled Pineapple with Nutella Sauce
This was surprisingly good. We didn't want to keep the grill outside on during the whole of dinner, so we decided to broil the pineapple instead. They're not quite as "grilled" as I would've liked, but they were still good. The pineapple itself that we bought was super-good.



Of course, last, but not the least, the "Teddy Bear" Gelato Cake.


Happy Birthday D!